MAMP Start Page Error : You Don’t Have Permission To Access Error

I use MAMP (Mac, Apache, MySql, PHP) to do test and do most of my Web and User Interface development for WordPress and Web applications. A few weeks back I found that the start page of MAMP stopped working. So I was unable to configure MAMP PHP, MySql and other settings. The MAMP Start Page would show me the following error whenever I tried to access it.

You don’t have permission to access /MAMP/ on this server.

Solving the MAMP Start Page Error

After hunting around a lot for a solution, I found a very simple fix. For some reason there was a .htaccess file in the root folder of the my hard disk. All you need to do is delete the .htaccess and presto your MAMP Start Page is back. If you are using WordPress then you might have to update your Settings -> Permalinks again to make Permalinks functional again.

Viewing and Deleting Hidden Files On MAC OS X

To view hidden files on a Mac you can use a program like Houdini which you can use to browse hidden files or to enable viewing of hidden files. Download Houdini here[1].

If you are geeky enough to type out commands on the terminal you can use the following commands.

To view hidden folders:

Open the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/)

At the command prompt type

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true

Press return to execute the command.

For the changes to take effect, either log out then log back in again, or relaunch Finder (this can be done from the Force Quit Window or by typing ‘killall Finder’ in a Terminal window).